Entertainment

'Plants vs. Zombies 2' Dark Ages Expansion Will Launch This Month

The many millions of fans of Plants vs. Zombies 2 should be as excited as a zomboss in a neuroscience lab, because the game is getting a new expansion very soon. The latest adventure in time will take your garden defense skills to the medieval period.

Plants vs. Zombies Dark Ages Part 1 introduces several new plants to the usual game format. The levels are all set at nighttime, so no sun will fall from the sky and the usual sunflower plants are no help. Instead, players must build up sun with the Sun Shroom. As with the shrooms in the original Plants vs. Zombies, these little fungi start very small, giving only 25 sun each. But they’ll grow over the course of the match to two additional sizes, each giving the player more sun to work with.

On offense, players have four more plants in their arsenal. The Puff Shroom makes a short-range attack on zombies and gravestones alike. They cost zero sun, but they fade away and eventually disappear from the lawn. For more power, you’ll want to plant the Fume Shroom, the bigger and badder version of that plant.

Another new entry is the Sun Bean. Zombies will eat these plants, but then they’ll drop very small amounts of sun as they progress toward your house. Finally, the new premium plant for the expansion is the Hypnoshroom. It’s the same as a plant from the original game, turning the zombie who eats it into a soldier for your plants.

The new 'Plants vs. Zombies map' — Dark Ages — pits players against more zombies in the challenging night mode.

Image: Electronic Arts

While the mechanics of these new plants are mostly similar to the nighttime battle options in the first Plants vs. Zombies game, the sequel’s addition of plant food added a new twist to those familiar faces.

Each of the new plants has a special ability or attack when given plant food. For instance, giving one Puff Shroom the boost will bring it and all other Puff Shrooms on the yard back up to full health, staving off their disappearance. The Hypnoshroom’s impact is especially impressive when given the plant food. The zombie that eats the powered-up Hypnoshroom becomes a gargantuan zombie, able to crush any enemy that appears in its lane.

As you’d expect with this new setting, there are also new zombies laying siege to your house. The Knight Zombie is a more extreme version of the bucket zombie. It can take a lot of hits, so players will need to launch serious attacks or play a strong defense to take this type out. The other new villain is the Jester Zombie. When this guy is attacked, he turns into a tornado and hurls your plants’ ammo back at them. If you’re not careful, this can take out a whole row of your garden soldiers.

We got to play a level of the expansion at EA’s booth at E3, and it looks like the PopCap team has been able to strike a good balance between the power of the new plants and the challenges of both the nighttime setting and the new enemies. Plant food adds a lot of dynamism to the game, creating moments with lots of excitement and movement that can turn the tide of a round. The power-ups from the main game are still present in this expansion, so if you’re really in a bind, you can flick away or electrify zombies who are getting a little too close for comfort.

The look of the game is spot on, and the art team did a great job of creating a lighthearted take on the Dark Ages. For example, the well-known basic zombies have been kitted out with period-appropriate peasant and friar robes. Rather than lawn mowers, your final line of defense is a row of old-school plows.

The new content should be available on all the current mobile platforms at the end of the month. The name of the new expansion implies that we could also be seeing a Part 2 update in the near future, but players will have to wait for news about when that second round will launch. In the meantime, expect your garden to get the medieval makeover in mere weeks.

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